I find him earthy and I'm here with two of the Dover Sherman boosters I want you
guys introduce yourselves that sounds great dad thanks for having us this is Phil
Scatcherd I'm president sure boosters organization and I'm out here I'm one of the
members of the Dover sugar boosters organization OK so why don't we talk
a little bit about what the boosters are and what you guys do. So the booster's is
an organization that was started many years ago here in the community of Dover
Sherburne by
a group of engaged parents that one of the support the student body in their
athletic accomplishments and it's an organization that's been made up of
a whole bunch of community leaders if you will that have come together to try to
enhance the athletic experience of the Dover Sherman community one of the unique
assets of our community is that eighty percent of our students play
a sport which when you compare that to many other communities around the
Commonwealth that's
a very unusual statistic from what I've been told in fact talking to Stephen Bliss
who is come in recently to kind of manage the whole district you know the the
community he came from was about forty five fifty percent of the students that
participated so we've got huge numbers of kids that participate in our sports we're
here as a broader community to help round out their experience in
a positive way and were some of the sports that students participated you couldn't
you know imagine most of the classics if you would and I don't know if you grew up
in that over here with community I think you might have Yeah but you know certainly
in the fall it's football you know soccer field hockey you know the track team
is active you know off golf thank you Yup both of the boys in the girls side you
know in the winter it's basketball alpine skiing for the first time ever this year
we're going to have an indoor track season that will be something new here at Dover
Sherman
a community got behind sponsoring that and then certainly in the spring all across
for boys and girls baseball you know is a big sport outdoor tracks
a big sport so it's pretty varied in terms of its appeal to the to the student
population and what are some leaders the services that you provide for these
athletes that's a great question so you know every year we. Take ownership of
a lot of different areas you know to benefit the community including what we're
here to talk
a little bit about tonight is one of our largest fundraisers is our annual travel
on this is the night that will travel on all of the proceeds that come from these
events our poor back into the community essentially we do that through
a number of different ways there are scholarships that we provide to our students
on an annual basis you know the kids to participate in sports programs
as captains or recognize you know for their achievements through
a series of scholarships we end up underwriting
a significant amount of equipment. You know capital equipment for the different
teams that include shot clocks you know for the gymnasium you know sound systems
for the stadium field batting cages you know for the baseball teams softball teams
so it's pretty varied in its appeal in terms of how we put that money back into the
community to benefit the kids and then let's talk someone about how you raise this
money you know yeah yeah I need money Danny like the other posters were always
looking for for willing participants so fund raising fund raising fund raising it's
kind of one of our. Key initiatives if you will you know part of what we do every
year in terms of fund raising is based on community participation and not community
participation what I mean by that is this weekend we're going to have our run daddy
will travel on which has become our largest fundraiser of the year the beautiful
thing about that event is that it brings the community together in
a meaningful way through volunteer opportunities that we have there are numerous
but
a lot of the participants are people coming from outside the community so the money
that's coming into the community to benefit our kids is coming from sources outside
you know the broader community to help you know the kids and through our initiative
endeavors try to you know stimulate. Equipment purchases and things like that so
triathlon is big Certainly we manage the snack shack and you know all the proceeds
go back through the boosters program gate receipts go back through the boosters
program and that's people attending our various events whether it's football of
that basketball hockey of that you know is
a big part of the fundraising that we do so it's pretty varied in terms of and
let's talk some more about this traffic on what's it consist of than you know
what's what's going to happen with it well considering we have one of the original
founders of the drive mom with us I'll have her let Al take that question Sure
so the triathlon. Is a is known as
a sprint level triathlon which typically has
a typical sprint triathlon will have three components which is a swim a bike in
a row and in
a run the test distances are shorter than some of the longer ones like the
classical Y.
And Iron Man that people may have seen on the television exciter and so Sprint
level triathlons are really geared towards people that are like us trying to keep
ourselves in shape work out get kids involved except for
a and it's typical swim distance might be
a quarter mile swim which is essentially what ours is up to perhaps a third of
a mile or even up to a half
a mile the bike portion will be anywhere from ten to fifteen plus miles Ours is
about fourteen point eight miles and then runs through Sherburne and over NY
streets which are very familiar to many people who bike
a lot around here as some of the typical bike routes that some of the buy clubs use
and then the run is generally in the five K.
Or or shorter so around you know three point one three point four miles.
Sometimes a little longer than that so they're strung together as either one
a vent that
a single individual can do in and go from one to the other or they can be done as
a relay where people one person does one leg of it another person goes another and
then the third person does the last forty so it's it is staged in
two locations which is
a little unusual for triathlons as the swimmers in farm pond Sherburne the bike
through Sherburne in Dover and then the run is through some of the streets here and
over and over in the Donnelly estates which is one of the well known training runs
for the for the cross country in the Tractatus So we did it as sensually as
a way to sort of incorporate both sounds and get people involved in something that
was
a health oriented and essentially. Spirit and camaraderie type of
in and you know volunteer ism type of oriented event. That would bring both of the
towns together we get people from both Sherman and over together to help out which
is something that Collette as Bill has already mentioned collectively age in the
whole sports oriented culture here at the high school and then what sort of caused
this to be created. So this was created as just
a grassroots idea that
a former wrote Dover resident Peter Kell see and I came up with on
a training run while we were training for
a triathlon that we were participating in in the middle of two thousand the first
decade and we thought there would be
a great way to sort of get people to come to the town here and but also wouldn't be
a reasonable fundraiser we had no idea that it would it would attain the success
that it has. And essentially we put it to go. Either as something to benefit the
sports organizations because frankly there's
a very well organized. Fund raising capacity for the academics in the school and
so we decided that we would develop this for something that was in need of perhaps
a fresh look at the front raising the way we that. Many fundraisers and gallows and
things that were held by the boosters which are were great we figured this was
something more in keeping with the spirit of the boosters which is
a little bit more athletically inclined so we we had both permit for S'sopoaga to
numerous triathlons and then mass challenge etc So we decided to take all the best
components of all of those races that we had been involved in and put it together
to produce something that might work and so we really hadn't really no idea if it
would but we worked very hard the first year in subsequent years as well tried to
dot all the i's and cross the t's and get organized and it sold out the first year
. About
a month or two ahead of time and it has sold out every year since then so it really
it really has taken on
a life of its own in the triathlon world and so we're as we are even today turning
people away that want to be in the race so it's it's
a good deal so how many people participate. So we typically have about three
hundred people part of that is based on safety which is the main our main goal is
to maintain
a safe race so we keep the numbers down so that we can control and carefully
orchestrate what happens during the swim part in fun part which of course is the
where the most risk is and really isn't We've never had an issue but that's partly
because we. Have. We have gotten
a number of lifeguards this year I think we have twelve lifeguards for the three
hundred people and they're scattered throughout the course we have. This flotation
devices and we have boats and everything to help the people feel like they're safe
. And then and then from there goes on to the bike course in and we have
volunteers all around to help people make sure that they stay on course and then
the same thing on and on the run scenario and then why are some of the logistical
challenges setting up this discourse so there are some so we have
a because of parking issues at farm pond which are it's relatively small venue we
take over the entire parking lot with our bike racks for people to track their
bikes so that we don't have the ability to have people start and finish the race in
the same place so we have to have two different transition areas where by we have
the so-called swim bike transition area at farm pond and then we have
a second transition area here at the high school which is the bike run transition
and so we have to make sure that we get people's all the people there to start the
race and then we have to make sure we get all the equipment back here in an
organized fashion to finish the race when when athletes are done and they want to
come to find their equipment they have to be able to find it so we basically model
that after the sand mass challenge that has
a extraordinarily militaristic efficiency to their ability to get everything in
with back in one place and organized and and you know I'm not sure will ever get to
quite that level of organization but we that's what we described to you and it's
worked out so OK OK so far when you've had
a positive interaction with the towns of Dover insurer Warren who you know are
along the course are you now just interacting with the town government and all that
is it's generally been profit. It's been
a very very positive because and rightly so they were very skeptical at first
because of the number of people in the risk involved in so Dover ensure and
have been very careful to have us. Sort of.
What would you say we have to we have to meet
a series of state or city energy Exactly that's what it is
a series of standards that they have stablished So we have to have signed off from
the. Fire department from the police department from the highway department from
the farm pond communities there in the police both and over ensure we have police
details in both towns that keep traffic controlled and keep the athletes as safe as
possible and so that bit that has engendered
a lot of trust and therefore we've had
a very good relationship not to mention the fact that we keep if the place is
cleaner than they were me first got there so if there's when we sweep all both
locations here at the high school and farm pond when we're done we pick up all the
trash it's cleaner than it was. Before we got there so if you're
a good neighbor then people are going to invite you back and so far we've been
pretty successful for the last nine years and now it's point one of the things that
they asked us to do is on August twenty sixth we had to go to the Sherman select
men's meeting. And the selection were very supportive again of the triathlon but
they wanted to know as Al described that there is this checklist that we had to go
down and really we had to check off and get signatures from all of the different
organizations across the Sherborne governing body if you will to make sure that
they signed off that everything was safe and they approved of us hosting the
triathlon again including one of our own Emily Hans is leading the charge for the
lifeguards this year so every year there's usually someone from either the D.S.
Wimp team or the D.S.
Nappers organization that steps up and will lead the charge as I mentioned around
you know recruiting the lifeguard component that will be available to manage the
event you know during the. Actual race day and as
a student in the community she took it upon herself to reach out recruit
a bunch of her friends and she'll be taking charge of that component of it but the
selectmen are really critical about us having all of those individuals lined up in
advance before they will approve of the event every year and then and sort of on
a related note like how much interaction do you have with students for this event
and for all booster events for that matter well Dan for this event we couldn't do
it without the students we couldn't do without the students primarily because they
represent
a significant component of our volunteers the reason why is Al articulated we can
host this event every year as it's grown in size and scale is that the students
from all of the teams that are represented in the fall sports are volunteering for
different areas of the you know session becoming
a two day event set up in staging on Saturday and actual race day on Sunday so they
come in and volunteer for different you know aspects set up take down clean up
coursework what have you but without the students' participation there's no way we
could pull this event off. Its turf and then they get such great bath
it's from from participating in this to they get community service hours. Which is
which is to them
a great thing to get those signed up. So then. Maybe maybe
next week should we talk someone about
a story or fundraising goals for the year or yeah that would be great Dan because
last year we went through one of the more significant milestone of fund raising
for the D.S.
Boosters you know in terms of their history and that was to recognise the
the plan that we put together with the Regional School Committee that was done by
an outside engineering. Firm to essentially upgrade our entire campus if you will
over
a phased approach and last year phase one was essentially the initiative that we
put forth which was to remove the natural grass on our stadium field and put down
a synthetic turf surface we wanted to do that for a number of reasons one from
a safety perspective there is research that shows that that service is safer than
a grass surface to in some cases the grass surface was unplayable because of
weather issues or teams couldn't get out there early in the spring you know where
teams could play and when it was professionally wet in many cases we couldn't host
playoff games because of the field was unplayable you know it was
a barrier to hosting
a home playoff game so one of the initiatives was to upgrade that surface and
through
a appeal to the community once that the plan was approved by the Regional School
Committee the town of Dover the appeal to the community was private fund raising
through the boosters organization generating significant proceeds to upgrade that
service we were successful in through
a series of five donations raising about one point one million dollars last year
that allowed us to begin construction last spring and end up with the first game
being played on that in I think early September of last season so that was
a significant milestone for us in terms of you know
a fund raising being being able to accomplish
a significant project like that within a timeframe on
a budget goal that we had but we're not done because with that regional campus
upgrade there are two additional phases that we'd like to to accomplish I've got
a couple of boards here to kind of sure you know with the community especially the
first is. The orientation here is the middle school is located here the main drive
into the parking lot is off here to the left but phase two of this regional upgrade
this plan is to put
a turf surface on what would currently be the football practice field adjacent to
the middle school area on the surface it will basically be the same size as the
stadium field surface it will be lined the same way one of the reasons why I call
that out is that we can support. I think six sports on the surface including boys
and girls lacrosse field hockey football and as you can see here on this example
we're also going to have a J.V.
Softball surface on this area as well this will allow us to support you know
practices multiple practices both of all games if you will onto
a synthetic surfaces which we think will be
a significant benefit to our athletes but this is also part of the Phase two of our
regional plan and then lastly I've got the the other diagram that I wanted to share
which is the upgrade of the. Tennis facility that we have so the goal would be
to remove the four tennis courts that we have adjacent to the parking lot over by
the stadium field that will be replaced by a Glock
a grass surface that will allow for us to create two eleven v eleven services for
additional field space for our athletes and in response to removing those courts
where the current varsity of field varsity because we have our city softball field
is in the middle schools here the varsity parking lot is back to our right but this
will now be a new tennis complex for athletes It will feature six courts and
a multi purpose outdoor athletic field the basketball surface here with the seating
air. A storage area for supplies but one of the unique things about having six
courts is that for most matches five courts are required we only have four
currently so this will be
a much better footprint for our athletes you know to work on this and play on the
surface so this is all part of the additional second phase of the regional upgrade
the plan of attack we need about two point five million dollars to complete both
the tennis facility the synthetic surface on the practice field as well as some
other minor upgrades with backstops and walkways that we've got planned as well so
we're through phase one we have essentially phase two and Phase three in front of
us it's
a significant. You know effort to fundraise because this is all private donations
through the community to really to generate you know that type of capital but we
have been approached by
a number of citizens who have interest you know in the project they have an
interest in making an impact in the community we have some history of being
successful you know with this as relates to phase one in our ability Jerry one one
in in additional capital to do that so we're optimistic that we can do this the
term is
a little longer than we were hoping for because of the size and scope of the project
but you know with right now we're we're all about kind of
a fund raising initiative to try to accomplish these two goals and what kind of
timeline are you looking at to accomplish this you know it's
a great question then and to be candid we have not put
a timeline on it just because of the size and scope of the project certainly the
path of least resistance is one donor coming to the table saying I'd like to
underwrite the entire project and if that happens we could break ground as soon as
next summer. The construction part of any of these projects would have to happen
over the summer because it's least disruptive to the student population but you
know again the community at large is going to respond to the call to action with
this. They're going to be specific donors they're going to respond in
a larger way and depending on the outcome of the fundraising outreach we have you
know we could begin as soon as next summer or he'll be in
a soon as you know twenty fifteen there's really no timeline to it and with these
facilities be used exclusively by Dover Sherman students or when they also be
open potentially to. Other private interests Yeah that's another good question so
the the appeal to these would certainly be to our Dover seven high school students
the middle school students and they would be using these you know certainly for all
of their matches for games for practices and things like that but these also have
a broader appeal to the community use force is certainly interested and currently
uses the stadium surface that we did so they would be able to take advantage of
this additional surface for use sports whether it's soccer lacrosse you know any of
those football any of those organizations that needs additional field and playing
service would be able to use this as well as you know in the community we have
adult soccer leagues that play on these surfaces you know and you know the softball
could use this surface for instance you know over here on the on the practice field
as part of the configuration there tennis appeals to it you know I'm not the mass
in town you know you come over here on any night and the courts are active with you
know community people coming in and playing so you know it would be fair game for
everyone including the population here at the high school that's great. So
I don't know if I if there's anything else additionally you want to say I mean I
could ask you questions about how you guys got involved in boosters if you'd be
interested in talking about that bomb. Yeah I mean I was involved personally
because I had skin in the game with my my kids you know they were in athletics and
into sports and I thought they you know sitting on
a sideline and supporting them by driving to home or away matches was one thing but
you know there's a kind of
a greater call to action for me and I thought you know what better way to serve the
community to get involved boosters I can tell you that it's
a wonderful organization we have
a lot of fun there's the constant need for additional resources to get involved but
in the end of the day between what we do with the fund raising what we do with the
funding committee to give back to the community what we've been able to do with the
Raiders rack and seeing all the kids you know around the community branded in year
looking like very sharp and seen the adults get into it and you know it's been
amazing starting that five years ago from nothing to see where it is today
occupying
a store from here Lou like was common you know it's really satisfying to be part of
an experience like that and I enjoy it now. You want to say how you got involved.
So I got involved mainly. To the fact that I've had four kids that have gone
through over Sherman high school the last of whom is now
a freshman my daughter Emma. And I can I came in. Primarily through the
triathlon but also have been known to flip burgers over at the concession stand
further some burn burn. And I would say that the thing that has.
Sort of been the highlight for me really has to come in contact with
a lot of other parents of in similar interest in the in the community and I think
would bill is talked about the behind the scenes organization commitment to both up
and time especially but also financially to. Eating our kids and
those that help teach our kids. Is really sort of
a humbling experience it's been really great to see that and I have wanted to be
part of that so I give the time that I can to help out to get the the third wheel
in this in this group who's not able to join us tonight because he's in Salt Lake
City on a business trip is
a guy who's been kind of the backstop for the boosters for probably nine or ten
years now at least minimum I think back but Frank Perlmutter recruited me into the
boosters
a couple years ago and you know singlehandedly drove the bushes organization you
know through
a number of years he had three children that were active in the boosters but you
know through Frank's efforts you know kind of cajoling corralling recruiting he
kept the boosters going and he's still we call him chairman emeritus of the
boosters but he's still actively involved and tell us what to do on
a regular basis so that wise to ask how can people who are not currently involved
get more involved with the boosters Yeah dad the best way to do it is to first of
all if anybody is interested W W W dot D.S.
Boosters dot com There's information there about the travel and there's information
there about the boosters. There is contact information if they would choose to get
involved they can send me an e-mail scatch at G.
Mail dot com is the best way to get in touch with me that information is on the
website we are going through our membership drive right now if people in the
community are interested we are always looking for new members with the membership
you get boosters passes which allow you free access to things like football games
basketball games hockey games so we're in the process of that membership drive
right now and you know encourage people to get involved with out if they can and
also from another fund raising perspective with a triathlon we have
a huge community of friends and family we call them that. Have participated and
helped underwrite the cost of the triathlon by making gifts to the traffic on the
recognized to individual signage around the route but individuals can give directly
online this year we've added
a credit card option online so they can join to the boosters and become
a member online they can contribute to the to the travel and through the friends
and frat friends and family network online directly from the website so if they
want to get involved that's the best place to go that's that's terrific Maybe I
should ask
a little bit more about talking about the Raiders rock and what's available at that
what size you did you will be the M U A largely small medium pretty tiny Well if
you are small or medium we've got ample sizes of Under Armor gear Nike
gear you name it it's over there
a fleece water bottles shoes. Flip flops it's incredible
the exciting thing is that the inventory just arrived for this year there's been
a number of individuals that have led that that cause Gen Collins joined
a broch Paddy Gallagher. Christe Kristen market has taken over an active role
there but there's
a number of people from the community to volunteer their time for
a couple hours because it's open several days each week where people from the
community can go in we've got kids that pop in that are having lunch and link was
Camas and they're going in and you know buying things so it's been unbelievably
successful for us to open that up it's great so if you have any other additional
thoughts you want to add that's great but you know otherwise I don't think I have
a name for their questions thanks so much for coming and thank you for having us
thanks for having us this is great thank you very much. All right thank you very
much thank you.